POVERTY AND INFANT MORTALITY

AP

Published: February 21, 1982

CHICAGO, Feb. 20—
Poverty may be the reason why women in minority groups are more likely than whites to bear small babies with a high risk of death, a new study says.

The higher infant death rate among minorities gives the United States one of the highest overall infant mortality rates among developed countries, and the researchers suggested that the higher death rate is tied to income rather than race.

J. David Erickson of the national Centers for Disease Control, who conducted the study with Dr. Tor Bjerkdal of the University of Oslo in Norway, said studies have shown that infant mortality rises as income levels fall, and that poverty was a possible cause of low birth weight.

The study, published in the new issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association, compared infant death rates in the United States and Norway and indicated that birth weight is a primary factor in infant mortality.

''My suspicion is that it could have something to do with nutrition or less prenatal care,'' Dr. Erickson said. ''It's a possibility, but we don't know that for a fact.'' 'The Central Problem'

In an editorial accompanying the study, Dr. Nigel Paneth wrote, ''Put simply, poorer mothers have smaller babies, and smaller babies are at a higher risk of early death.

''I think it's well documented that poorer people have higher infant mortality rates. Now, with the implication that low birth weight is the central problem with infant mortality in the United States, the question is, 'What is it about poverty that causes low birth weight?' ''

The 1977 United States infant mortality rate of 14.1 deaths per 1,000 births ranked 16th from lowest in the world, while Norway's rate of about 9.2 deaths per 1,000 births was fifth.

The study also says an infant weighing between 5.5 pounds and 6.6 pounds is more than five times as likely to survive its first day of life than a baby weighing 4.4 pounds to 5.5 pounds. Twice as many babies weighing less than 5.5 pounds are born to minority women in the United States than to white women in the United States or in Norway, according to the study.

In 1976, almost 13 percent of the infants born to minority women in the United States weighed less than 5.5 pounds, the study said, compared to 6.5 percent for white United States women and 5 percent for Norwegian women.